


Rest Your Weary Head

by missingelderly



Category: The 100 (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 11:25:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3808600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missingelderly/pseuds/missingelderly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twice Octavia has a nightmare, and twice Bellamy is there for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rest Your Weary Head

**Author's Note:**

> For Abby, who gave me the original prompt and who made me watch The 100 in the first place. I hope her and everyone else who loves the Blakes enjoys this work!

His mom was always out late, and Bellamy was at the age where he knew she was spending it with the guards, but wasn’t quite old enough to know the details of what they did. He knew it had something to do with how late she came home, her blouse misbuttoned, how she smoothed her skirt. How after briefly checking up on him and Octavia, she went to the shower block and stayed there until the water was cut off. 

Day and night did not exist on the Ark: only lights on and lights off. Every third light in the hall was lit, and all lights in the Blake dwelling were off. It was well past curfew, so the sound of boots against metal didn’t echo down the hall. Only the ambient noises of the ship, ceaselessly, droned on.   
Bellamy had listened to that drone all his life and only noticed the noise if he was concentrated on it, the same way he didn’t notice he was breathing or blinking automatically until the thought occurred to him. The noise provided the perfect canvas for his restless thoughts. Tonight, he would confront his mother about her nighttime habits. He had planned his speech all during classes, even bulleted out a crude list of transgressions (“sometimes you aren’t home to get our morning rations even though you say you will be and then I have to get them myself, and you know Octavia hates being left alone”). He prided himself on being so mature for his age. His thoughts rode the waves of the white noise of the ship, loud enough to cover the sound of a trapdoor opening and the padding of tiny feet across the floor.

“Bell,” a voice whispered.

He jumped out of his reverie. “Octavia? What’s wrong?”

“I had a bad dream.” Her frame was barely illuminated by the crack of light shining from underneath the door, just enough to show the outline of her thin arms clutching her threadbare doll, the hem of her gray dress. Her bottom lip trembled and her eyes, even in the low light, shimmered. “I had a dream where I had to hide under the floor for inspection, but you and mom forgot I was there, and I c-couldn’t breathe a-a-and I couldn’t scream or lift the door or or or…”

He sat up. “O, stop crying. It’s okay.”

He pulled her into a hug and let her sob onto his shoulder. He patted her back and shushed her, half to comfort her and half to make sure her cries didn’t disturb the neighbors.

“I wouldn’t ever forget you,” he muttered. “You know that.”

“E-even though you’re at school all day? Or with all your other normal friends?”

His back tenses up. Octavia was young, but she still had thorns that could prick him if she desired to wound. “O, you know that’s not fair. I have to go to school. I would get in trouble if I didn’t. And you know what?” He pulled away from the embrace, his hands on her skinny shoulders.

“What?”

“You’re my best friend.”

He didn’t need to see to know that she was smiling. “Thanks, big brother.”

“You’re welcome.” He gave her belly a sharp poke and she burst into a fit of giggles. “Do you want to sleep here tonight?”

She nodded vigorously, her black hair flipping up and down. Bellamy let her lay closer to the wall, just so she would be more easily hidden should one of the guards want to drop his mother off at the door. Octavia burrowed under the covers and curled up against him, and, exhausted from crying, fell asleep instantly.

The lights were on when his mother woke him up, and the Ark hummed with the sounds of feet in the hall and words in the air. She was sewing at the table, the day’s rations sitting in front of her, her head bowed innocently. 

Bellamy stored away his confrontation speech to use at a later date, and got out of bed. Octavia pretended to still be asleep as he dressed and ate his breakfast across from their silent mother.

* * *

Earth was loud. Cicadas chirped, fire popped under flame, wind rustled the trees and made the tents shudder and snap in the breeze. Distantly, someone laughed.

The noise wasn’t the reason Bellamy was wide awake, staring at the ceiling of his tent, arms folded behind his head in the gesture of defeat used by insomniacs everywhere. He finally had a moment to himself, and his eyes couldn’t close for longer than a second.

He was always running around the camp, checking on the kids and keeping the adults in line, and when he wasn’t doing any of that, he was worrying. He searched for signs of Clarke when he went out hunting. A lock of blonde hair fluttered just out of view, but when he turned it would vanish. During meetings with the Chancellor and Kane inside the Ark ruins, he would be tapping his foot against the charred floor, imagining the sound of the horse hooves, the Grounders come back to collect their heads. And, every day, he would look into the faces of the sky box kids and see gaunt worry and hunger stark against their previously rosy, clean cheeks. Technically he was responsible for all of the Arkers now, but the delinquents still held a special notch in his heart. Bellamy wondered how they were sleeping, or if they slept at all.

Once normality and routine had settled back onto the camp like a sheet slowly fluttering onto a mattress, he had a few visitors to his tent. They were the girls he had slept with after the dropship crash landed (“Whatever the hell we want!”, and so on. Bellamy cringed at the memory). Individually, they propositioned him again, but he couldn’t indulge their desires. Sex was now the last thing on his mind. Romance was in another solar system entirely. His tent was small, his bed was cold, and he was fine with that.

A twig snapped outside his tent and he jolted up, a knife already in his white-knuckled grip. The tarp parted, and his shoulders slumped as much as his aching muscles would allow.  
It had been a long time since he had seen Octavia without her paint on. There were new lines on her face, the gleam in her eyes had crystallized into a hard stare, and her mouth was now permanently set into a stony, pink ridge. Her jaw clenched and unclenched. She ducked into the tent, letting the tarp fall behind her.

“Octavia? What’s wrong?”

She shrugged. “I wanted to see if you were okay.”

It was a flimsy excuse, and they both knew it. “Why?”

She sighed. “Lincoln’s gone. Run away, somewhere. I’ve been looking for him all night, but I passed out and…” She rolled her eyes. “I had this…God…I had this nightmare where Lincoln was a Reaper again, and he was chasing me through Mount Weather. I tried to find you, but you were a Reaper too, and I kept trying to run but I realized I couldn’t run because the walls were getting tighter and tighter and…”

She shook her head, cutting herself off when her voice started to hitch. She blinked rapidly and away from him.

“Anyway,” she continued after a moment. “It was stupid. But some of the grounders think dreams are prophecies, so…I thought I’d play it safe and check on you.”

“O…” Bellamy said quietly.

She gave him a small, rueful smile, the first he’d seen in months. It just about broke his heart.

“We’ll find him. I promise. But you need some sleep first.”

“I’ll sleep when I find him.”

“You won’t be able to find him if you don’t sleep.”

Her silence conceded the point. “Bell…do you mind if I—”

He had already scooted over, leaving the blanket on the vacant side of the bed. She laid down on top of it with shoes still on and knife still strapped to her belt. Bellamy folded the blanket over on top of her and laid down on the other side of the bed.

“I won’t let anything bad happen to you,” he whispered. “I promise.”

“Get some new lines,” Octavia mumbled as her eyes started to drift closed. 

She was gone by the time the sun rose, and Bellamy woke up with the imprint of a folded blanket on his face, a spider web of white and red on his cheek.


End file.
